


Down To Earth

by bluflamingo



Category: The Martian (2015)
Genre: Earth, F/M, Post-Movie(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-12
Updated: 2016-12-12
Packaged: 2018-09-08 04:55:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8831251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluflamingo/pseuds/bluflamingo
Summary: With hotel rooms that are too big, scarves doing double-duty as rope, and though it doesn't quite work out like they planned, a day that still works out right in the end.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kultiras](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kultiras/gifts).



"So this is what a year in space gets you," Chris said softly.

"Year and a half," Beth corrected, automatic after all the times their press officer had said it since they'd arrived back on Earth. She leaned into Chris, reassuringly solid and familiar in the too-loud too-bright of the hotel. Their room – her room – really was a luxury, from the four poster bed to the huge windows and the gift basket laid out on the desk. 

It was just that, after Mars and the Ares and the tiny rooms they'd slept in at NASA while they went through debrief and reintegration – "What do you think we're supposed to do with all this space?"

Chris laughed, tugging her closer. Beth relaxed back into him, wrapping her hands around his wrists and smiling when he hummed out a warm breath against her neck. "We're probably not supposed to stand in the doorway."

"We could take a bath," she suggested. The bellboy had pointed out the en-suite bathroom, the full size tub with built-in massage jets and a second basket, this one filled with bubble baths and soaps with ingredient lists longer than those on their food packages. Chris hummed against her neck again. "I can't even remember the last time I had a real bath." It must have been before they went into final mission prep; she'd spent a few days at her parents' house, and they had a giant claw-footed tub.

"Me either." Chris shifted behind her, didn't move. Laughed a little, softly. "It's really far away."

Beth opened her mouth to point out that they wouldn’t get any less tired if they stayed standing in the doorway, and then realized that Chris was right – the bathroom was far away. The bathroom, the bed, even her bag at the foot of the chair in the near corner. It was more than just the space – the gym on the Ares had felt like an auditorium in the end, with big windows, high ceilings, the endless view all around them. The room was too spacious, but more than that, everything was too far away from where they were standing; too far away from the rest of the crew, who'd only been within shouting distance for the better part of two years.

She took a deep, shaky breath. Chris had been brave enough to say it; it was her job to fix it. "The bed's closer."

"It is." Chris' hands twitched, arm muscles tightening under her hands. "We could do that." Neither of them moved. "We went to Mars. Twice. This should be easier."

"You know what we need?" Beth asked, and Chris, just proving that they were either made for each other or permanently warped by their experiences, said, "A countdown," in perfect sync with her.

"Five," Beth said, before they could lose their nerve. "Four…"

"Three," Chris joined in, laughing.

"Two." Beth slid her left hand down to curl around his.

"One," and they were running for the bed, laughing like children as they threw themselves onto it, still wearing their shoes, Beth's right elbow landing perilously high on Chris' hip, Chris tumbling down half on top of her and dragging her half on top of him when he rolled off. "Touchdown," Beth said, still laughing, and leaned in to kiss him.

He tasted like NASA coffee and chap stick, and the moment they'd found out that Mark wasn't dead, the moment they'd agreed to take their ship and go get him. Nothing else was ever going to be as important as that. 

Though she'd admit, if pressed close to him on a ridiculously soft bed in a gorgeous hotel room while the sun shone outside the window, that Chris was still a pretty nice thing.

"Since we're here," Chris said, a long time later, his T-shirt pushed up around his chest, Beth's button down and bra hanging off one wrist, both of them breathless. 

Beth dipped in for another lush, slow kiss that turned into Chris' mouth on her neck as she gasped and shivered with the skin contact. It took her brain a while to remember that Chris had said something, and then what he'd said, and then that she needed to say something in response and what that thing might be. "Since we're here, what?" her brain eventually offered.

It wasn't brilliant or anything, but then Chris just said, "Huh?" like he'd forgotten words were even a thing, so Beth didn't feel too bad about it.

Beth pushed herself up on her elbows, just enough distance between them that she didn't immediately give back in to the temptation of skin and kisses. "You said, since we're here, implied, we should – something. What's the thing?"

Chris blinked like he needed a moment to come back from somewhere, but his voice was clear and his smile went small and wicked. "Since we're here, didn't you say you have a scarf in your bag?"

"Yeah, I –" Beth had left it behind in her locker at NASA when they went to Mars, plain black cotton, wide enough to wrap around her shoulders at night on base when she got cold. Which wasn't the important part at all. "You want me to get it?"

Chris crossed his hands prettily at his chest, wrists crossed, hands curled in on themselves. "Please."

Beth kissed his forehead, caught by a burst of giggles when he sighed at the touch. "Since you ask so nicely."

She took advantage of being on her feet to shrug all the way out of her shirt and bra, letting them fall between the bed and her bag, then toeing out of her running shoes as she dug through her things. Behind her, she heard Chris moving around on the bed, presumably – hopefully – taking off at least some of his clothes. Maybe all of his clothes; Beth liked being half-naked, but even more than that, she liked being able to see exactly how affected Chris was. 

When she turned back, he had indeed stripped his clothes off, and she caught him, halfway to lying back down again, twisted awkwardly. He saw her looking, smiled, and promptly lost his balance, tipping down into the mass of pillows at the head of the bed.

"Graceful," Beth said dryly, helping Chris dig his way back out and toss a few pillows away. "What've you been doing for the last year again?"

"Year and a half," Chris corrected, laughing a little. "Blame gravity."

Beth bopped him gently in the face with a pillow. "We could blame whoever decided we need this many pillows."

Chris blew out a breath, still laughing – giggly already. He wriggled, settling onto his back and folding his hands again, eyes going dark as Beth settled herself astride him, rolling her hips to feel him most of the way hard underneath her. She dipped down to kiss him, soft and easy, enjoying the press of skin against skin. "Yes?"

"Please," Chris said, very soft.

Beth's scarf really wasn't the best thing for tying someone – too wide, a little too soft so that she knew she'd worry about Chris pulling it too tight too easily – but she wanted it too much to wait until the chaos of their return died down enough for them to actually go home. Folded lengthwise, though, it was almost enough for the illusion of rope, the sense memory of fibres between her hands and the art of a body bound up in them.

She started simple – it was all going to be simple, not enough length for some of the patterns she'd sketched across Chris' skin on their second trip home from Mars. Just the rope around his wrists, a loop down his fore-arm and back up, over his wrists again. For a moment, she thought about binding all the way up his hands, tucking his fingers away, hiding all the clever things those fingers could do, all the clever things they'd done to her, to Mark, to their ship – and that was enough to change her mind. Rope around rope instead, a tug, just hard enough to draw his hands in tighter, and then a pattern, symmetry down both arms, hyper-aware of how very little she had to work with, how much better – easier – it would be with her own ropes, brilliant pink and soft blue and familiar. 

Chris was watching her, intense and still. "Okay?" she asked quietly.

She watched his mouth shape the response, soundless. Saw the exact moment that the whole thing skipped sideways, his eyes filling with tears, his next breath too sharp, halfway to a sob.

She didn't have scissors. She hadn't tied off the bindings, they wouldn't be too hard to pull away, but the scarf was soft, sliding against itself, and she should have found scissors.

"Don't." Chris' hands tightened in hers – when had she taken his hands? Had he taken hers? He was holding on, fingers slotting between hers, curling in, almost too tight already. "Don't, I'm sorry, don't." He shifted, arched – oh, he wanted up – let Beth slide one arm around his back and pull him in close, his face wet against her bare skin. "Don't take it off, please."

"All right." He wasn't shaking, or tense, or trying to fight free, just leaning into her and weeping a little. Beth took a deep breath, felt Chris echo it, her own incipient panic easing with skin contact and comfort. "I'm right here."

Chris nodded and sniffed a little, which was kind of gross, but the fancy hotel room didn't seem to have Kleenex, and it wasn't like they hadn't done their share of crying on each other on the Ares. "Sorry," Chris said again. "I didn't – sorry."

Beth petted his hair, trying not to dig her elbow into his spine with the awkwardness of proximity and only having one free hand. "It's fine. Everything's fine."

"I know. I just –" Chris shivered, just once. A goose walking over your grave, Beth's mom used to say. "It just sort of – we're really here. We really made it, all of us."

Beth pressed her cheek to his hair, soft and warm, and closed her eyes. "We really made it."

*

Mark was waiting when they got through security the next morning, still using the wheelchair that medical insisted on and Mark said was stupid, he hadn't needed it on the Ares, he could walk just fine, Beck, tell them. Or, what do you mean, you're not my doctor, you're the Ares 3 crew doctor, just because we're on Earth, aren't we still a crew – how can you agree with them like that, Beck, you dirty traitor.

"Don't stand up," Chris said, before Mark could argue, and leaned down to hug him. 

"I'm the king of Mars, you can't tell me what to do."

"Kings sit, they make everyone else stand," Beth told him, bending down for her own hug. Barely twenty-four hours apart, but she felt like it had been at least a couple of weeks. According to the guards, she and Chris were the first two back, and she could see why Mark was lurking at the door, waiting for them. "Sorry we didn't take you with us."

Mark shrugged, executing a neat three point turn and backing the wheelchair up against the wall. He looked good, the NASA hoodie he was wrapped up in covering the weight he still needed to gain back, his face softened with the kind of simple, happy smile that they hadn't seen much of until they'd gotten close to Earth. "I wouldn't have wanted to intrude."

Beth very carefully didn't look at Chris. They hadn't done all that much in the end, but the naked cuddling had been really nice. Especially being able to do it without worrying that someone would burst in a see them, or worse, call one of them out to deal with some kind of ship-wide emergency while inadvertently wearing each other's T-shirts.

Not that she hadn't appreciated the way her own T-shirt outlined all of Chris' curves and edges, but it had never fit her quite right after, and it had been her favorite, the perfect level of soft and comfy.

Mark laughed. "Should I even ask what that look's all about, Johanssen?"

Beth thought about Chris, how he'd look wearing the ropes they'd whispered about in bed the night before; how he'd look tied to her bed in her apartment, wearing her ropes placed by her hands. "No," she told Mark, firmly. "You definitely shouldn't ask."


End file.
